Morphological and Phytochemical Studies on Pisum Sativum L. (Fabaceae)

Pisum sativum L. has been essential in human nutrition and agriculture due to its rich nutritional content, which includes proteins, fibers essential vitamins and minerals. Beyond its importance as a food crop, P. sativum has garnered significant interest in scientific research due to its potential in medicinal and therapeutic applications. Information on its bioactive compounds is available but the vegetative and floral characteristics and the basic mitotic and meiotic chromosomal investigations are lacking or rather scanty. This study examined the taxonomic and the fertility potentials of P. sativum with regards to morphological and phytochemical characteristics. Morphological characters were studied by visual observation and use of hand lens. Mitotic and meiotic chromosomal investigations were examined using root tip and flower buds squash techniques respectively. Phytochemical analysis was done using standard gravimetric and spectrophotometric methods. Analysis of variance was used to determine the level of significance, and results were presented in mean ± standard deviation. Morphological result revealed the habit of the P. sativum to be herbaceous annual climbing plant, leaf-alternate, entire, simple, compound, acute, cuneate, glabrous, smooth and Inflorescence- racemose, flower- papilionaceous, zygomorphic, five-lobed, superior, self-pollinated, pollen-tricolpate, fruit-legume (dry and dehiscent), seed-non-endospermic. Cytological result revealed the plant to be “diploid” with the mitotic chromosome counts of 2n=2x=14 and the meiotic chromosome counts of n=7. The pollen fertility result indicated that P. sativum is a highly fertile species. Qualitative and quantitative results indicated varied quantities of the secondary metabolites in the part (seed) of the plant investigated. The cytological studies indicated that P. sativum has a very high fertility and viability level and could be easily perpetuated and amenable to genetic manipulation thus justified its uses in various hybridization programmes. The overall data are valuable for taxonomic characterization and identification of species in the genus. Keywords: Cytological, fertility, hybridization, Morphological, Pisum sativum, Phytochemical, taxonomic.